Riverside Community College District Transitions from Campus to College

With the recommendations and findings from a brand positioning audit, Aespire® collaborated with Propeller Communications to develop visual identities for the Riverside Community College District of California: Moreno Valley Campus (College), Norco Campus (College), Riverside City College & Riverside Community College District Foundation.

The Challenge

With the transition from a three campus to a three college District, one of the challenges Riverside Community College District faced was helping the communities it served understand its new focus and how it would impact students, community members and donors. With a history dating back to 1916, RCCD launched a branding campaign to re-establish its identity and establish a foundation for cohesive communications and identity programs that created brand alignment for its future growth.

The Process

Starting with the research and recommendations from the Propeller Communications audit, Aespire was engaged to review the findings and begin a process of envisioning new community college logos, college seal designs and college athletic marks.

It was determined that each entity would need a logomark specifically developed to capture its unique personality attributes, and the unique qualities of the geographic region they serve within the district.

A visual audit of competing institutions was created to assist stakeholders with evaluating the potential solutions in the context of the region and marketplace.

In this process, it was clear that each college and entity had distinct differences in how their problem would be solved:

Riverside Community College District and Foundation did not have any visual assets that possessed equity. The stakeholders acknowledged that many people confuse the district with RCC (Riverside City College). Clearly the full name was a requirement for the solution

Moreno Valley College and NORCO College would be best served by typographic solutions

Leveraging the visual equity of a familiar symbol, an updated, simplified Lamp of Learning should be developed for RCC. Underneath the words Riverside City College can be set in upper/lowercase accentuating the capital letters — RCC.

Beyond the visual mark, the brand development process also incorporated typographic branding evaluations, from the typefaces incorporated into the marks to the support typefaces for each identity.

Results

The solutions that were developed by Aespire solved the challenge of creating four unique identities that would serve each entity’s outreach and branding initiatives to student, community and donor audiences.

Typographic branding:

RCCD: Customized versions of AE Veritas and Trade Gothic

Moreno Valley: Minion Pro and Avenir

NORCO College: Handlettered (NORCO College and Berkeley Oldstyle)

Riverside City College: Jenson Pro

Through this strategic initiative, RCCD has begun to establish the District and the Foundation as separate supporting entities that operate behind the colleges.

Each former campus that is now a college is clearly differentiated by a new seal, logo and collegiate athletic mark – each one acknowledging the history and reflecting their continued relationship within the three-college system of Riverside Community College District.